Fiction is in danger of becoming a kind of poetry. Only other poets read it. Only other fiction writers care about it.

To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man.

Women are an alien race set down among us.

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

What we need is progress with an escape hatch.

It’s spring! Farewell To chills and colds! The blushing, girlish World unfolds Each flower, leaf And blade of sod— Small letters sent To her from God.

What seems to sell books is good word-of-mouth, not promotion tours. I'm too old to believe that media promotion of a book really matters. What matters is how it will look 100 years from now, not how many copies are sold.